#13: Why You Should Send Influencers Free Products

I’m in a lot of different Facebook groups and a lot of times I see people post about getting messages from a blogger asking for free products in exchange for a review. A lot of times the underlining message that a lot of sellers have is “Why would I send free products to people in exchange for a review?”

One of my philosophies is the more products you can get in as many people’s hands as possible, the more your business will grow. I don’t know who I heard this first, but it was probably Barbara Corcoran on Shark Tank. A human being meets, talks to, and is around so many people in a single day and those are opportunities for so many different people to see your product. If people like it and your product is good, they’re going to tell everyone about it.

You’re probably done it before – you went to a restaurant and loved their food so much that you started going there with your friends. Before you know it all of your friends start going there with their spouses and friends. People just trust their friends’ recommendations. You want things that other people have, that’s just the nature of human beings.

What if you had the chance to get your product in the hands of the queen of England? Would you do it? It’s totally free, no strings attached, and you just have to ship your products. I think very few people will say no. Sure, not everyone is the queen of England, but our job as someone who runs their business and does marketing is to find out who it is worth it to send products to.

Not all influencers are made equal and a lot of people who tend to approach you don’t have a lot of traffic, don’t have an exact niche or maybe they just cover coupon codes and discounts.

Sending free product to influencers for them to write a review about you, feature you on their blog, website, social media or someone’s magazine – this is just the cost of doing business. I don’t want you to go too crazy sending products to everyone out there, but really do your research people who reach out to you and ask you for free products.

Consider that it might feel like you’re giving away the entire retail value of what you could have sold to someone who would have bought it for the full price, but it’s really not that. The cost of you making the product is going to be a much lower cost than the full retail price.

Hopefully, it’s not going to be too expensive for you. If you do your pricing right, it’s not going to be too expensive for you to send a free product to people in exchange for a little bit of exposure.

Just think about celebrities, celebrity magazines, and the news sites. They’re always talking about what Kim Kardashian is wearing or what restaurants she’s going to. People want what other people that they admire have and they want to look like them. This is the same psychological effect in play here.

Influencer marketing, doing PR, and doing publicity – I consider all of this to be the same umbrella of pitching your products to influencers or people who have a larger audience than you do. When Tiny Hands started this was how I really took off and really built up traction and momentum for my jewelry business – when I got my products featured on blogs and featured by social media influencers.

Not everyone is going to ask you for free products, but I don’t want you to be stingy about your products. Even when it comes to photos. If an influencer were to ask you if they can use your photo you should almost always say yes. They’re not going to make money off your photo so there’s really nothing for you to be afraid of or protective over.

If you’re interested in learning more about the process of pitching to influencers, how to get your products featured on highly trafficked websites and magazines, I would love for you to join http://www.inthelimelightecourse.com/. Join the wait list for it and when you sign up you will get a free email course on how you can pitch your products. Each lesson is going to be emailed to you over the course of a week.

Thank you for listening!

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I'm Mei ('may') from Minneapolis. I want to help you build a sustainable, profitable handmade business that makes you consistent income and sales. I only ever teach or recommend marketing, social media, pricing, production and branding tips that I've personally used in my own handmade business and that I know work. Read More…